Interview Notes Template for Recruiters and Hiring Managers

Thursday's debrief has three candidates for one territory rep job. Dana, the sales manager, opens her notes. Candidate one: "great energy." Candidate two: "good fit, strong closer." Candidate three: "solid, maybe?"

Nobody in the room can say what any of the three actually said. So the decision goes to whoever the panel remembers best, which usually means whoever interviewed last. (Dana is a composite, not a real manager.)

You know notes matter. A good interview notes template makes you write them so you can compare people fairly a week later, and explain the hire if anyone asks.

This guide gives you a template you can copy, one section filled in so you can see what good evidence looks like, a short version for recruiter phone screens, and a list of things that should never end up in your notes. It closes with how to rate, debrief and file notes afterwards.

If you'd rather listen than scribble, you can record interviews with ParrotNotes (with the candidate's consent) and fill the template from the transcript later.

What interview notes are for

Interview notes have two jobs. They help you remember what each candidate said, and they show why you rated each candidate the way you did.

The U.S. Office of Personnel Management's Structured Interview Guide puts it plainly: "Taking regular and detailed notes of observable behaviors and verbal responses during each interview is crucial." It adds that notes should "serve as documentation to support the employment decision," and that ratings "should be defensible and supported by the notes."

Structure pays off. A 2022 meta-analysis by Sackett, Zhang, Berry and Lievens in the Journal of Applied Psychology found structured interviews were the strongest predictor of job performance among the selection methods it reviewed, with a mean operational validity of .42 (SIOP summary). Structure means the same questions, the same scale and written evidence for every candidate, which is what a good interview notes template enforces.

Notes are also records. Under the EEOC's recordkeeping rule, 29 CFR 1602.14, employers covered by it keep employment records, including those about hiring, for one year from the date the record was made or the decision was taken, whichever is later. Write every note as if someone outside the room might read it one day.

The interview notes template (copy this)

Paste this into a doc, one copy per candidate per interviewer. Pick four to six competencies from the job description before the first interview, and ask every candidate the same main question for each one.

INTERVIEW NOTES

Candidate:            Role / req #:
Interviewer:          Date and interview stage:
Recorded? (Y/N, consent given on tape at start):

Competencies this round (from the job description):
1.            2.            3.            4.

--- COMPETENCY: [name] -------------------------------------
Question asked:
What they said (their words, short quotes):
  Situation:
  What they did:
  Result (numbers if given):
Follow-up asked, and answer:
Rating (1-5):
Why this rating (point to the evidence above):

[repeat the block for each competency]

--- CANDIDATE QUESTIONS ------------------------------------
What they asked us:

--- OPEN ITEMS --------------------------------------------
Things to verify (references, work sample, license):

--- RECOMMENDATION (written before the debrief) ------------
Advance / Hold / Do not advance
Top two reasons, tied to competencies:

The "their words" line does most of the work. A short quote like "I rebuilt the route so I could see 7 accounts a day instead of 5" beats any adjective you could write.

How to use the 1 to 5 rating scale

OPM recommends one rating range for every competency, with at least three levels labelled. Here's a simple set of anchors to start from. Rewrite the anchors for each competency before interviews start, so every interviewer scores against the same picture.

If you can't point to a line in your notes, you can't give the score. That one rule removes most "gut feel" ratings.

Interview notes example: one competency filled in

Here's what a completed block looks like. The candidate is a composite, interviewing for an outside sales rep job that covers a regional territory.

--- COMPETENCY: Handling objections ------------------------
Question asked: Tell me about a time a customer pushed back on
price late in a deal. What did you do?

What they said:
  Situation: "Distributor, 3 locations, wanted 12% off at renewal
  because a competitor quoted lower."
  What they did: Asked what the competitor's quote included.
  "Found out it had no install or training." Built a side-by-side
  with the buyer's ops lead, not just purchasing.
  Result: "Kept the account at 3% off, added a service contract."
  Said the contract was worth about $18k a year.
Follow-up asked: What would you do differently?
  Answer: "Bring ops in earlier, before renewal month."
Rating (1-5): 4
Why: Specific, recent example; own actions clear (asked, built
comparison, widened the contact); result with numbers. Not a 5:
one stakeholder move, not a hard multi-party save.

Notice what's missing. There's nothing about the candidate's handshake, age, accent or "vibe." Every sentence is about the job: what the customer asked for, what the candidate did, and what happened.

Dana's "strong closer" might describe the same person, but only this version can be compared with the other two candidates on Thursday.

A short interview notes template for recruiter phone screens

Agency and in-house recruiters run a lot of 20-minute screens, often straight after the hiring manager's intake call (the same prep-and-recap habits from our client meeting guide apply there). A full scorecard is overkill. Use this shorter version and keep it just as job-related.

PHONE SCREEN NOTES

Candidate:          Role / req #:        Date:
Source:             Recruiter:

Must-haves from the intake (Y / N / Unclear, with the evidence):
1. [e.g. 2+ years field sales]:
2. [e.g. valid driver's license, territory travel]:
3. [e.g. B2B quota experience]:

Why this role, in their words:
Current role and one result they're proud of (quote):
Pay expectations and notice period (as stated):
Work authorization (ask the same question of everyone):
Their questions:

Next step: Submit to hiring manager / Hold / Decline
Reason, tied to a must-have:

Priya, a composite agency recruiter, screens eight candidates a day for sales roles. She used to send "great communicator, 8/10." Now she sends the three must-haves with a quote under each, and managers read her submittals without calling her first.

One caution: rules on asking about current or past pay vary by state and city, so check your local rules before keeping that line, and ask about expectations rather than salary history where history questions are banned.

What to write, and what to leave out

The EEOC lists the protected bases: race, color, religion, sex (including transgender status, sexual orientation and pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability and genetic information. It says employers should limit pre-employment questions to what is "essential for determining if a person is qualified for the job," and it bars disability questions before a job offer.

Notes can cause trouble even when your questions were fine, because candidates volunteer things: a new baby, a religious holiday, a medical appointment. Don't write it down or let it into the rating. Here's how to turn common bad notes into job-related evidence:

The EEOC also warns that questions about marital status, children and childcare arrangements "are frequently used to discriminate against women and may violate Title VII." If travel or hours matter, describe the job's schedule and ask whether the candidate can meet it. Ask everyone the same way, and note the answer.

This is general information, not legal advice. State and city laws can go further than federal law, and they change, so check with your HR team or an employment lawyer for your location.

Taking notes during an interview without losing the conversation

Writing while someone talks is hard: your eyes are on the page and you miss the follow-up question. A few habits help:

• Write short quotes, not paragraphs. Five words in their voice ("rebuilt the route, 7 a day") are enough to jog your memory.
• Mark numbers and names. Circle any metric, customer type or tool they mention; those are what you'll compare later.
• Leave the rating blank until the end. Scoring while they talk pulls your attention to the score, not the answer.
• Tell the candidate you'll take notes. OPM's guide recommends saying so at the start, and it keeps pauses from feeling awkward.
• Finish the write-up the same day. Fill the gaps within the hour if you can, while you still remember the answer behind each quote. If typing is slow, speak your write-up into the free online dictation tool and paste the text into the template.

Recording the interview instead

Recording lets you stay in the conversation and pull exact quotes later. It raises two questions: consent, and how the recording is used.

On consent, federal law (18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(d)) allows recording when one party consents, but the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press lists about 11 states that primarily require everyone's consent, including California, Florida, Illinois and Pennsylvania. The habit that works everywhere: ask at the start and get the yes on the recording. Our guide to recording an interview on your phone covers phone placement and the consent script.

On use, keep the decision human. If software scores or ranks candidates, some places regulate it: New York City's Local Law 144 requires a bias audit and candidate notice for automated employment decision tools. A transcript and a summary are memory aids. The ratings still come from you, against your anchors.

Marcus, a composite hiring manager for a building-supply distributor, runs in-person panel interviews in a conference room. He sets his phone on the table with ParrotNotes recording and listens. Afterwards he has a transcript and an AI summary of the conversation, and with speaker ID on Pro he can tell his colleague's questions from the candidate's answers. He asks the AI chat on that transcript "what did she say about her quota last year?", copies the exact line into the template, and then scores it himself.

Want the quotes without the frantic typing? Download ParrotNotes free. Every recording gets an AI summary on the Free plan, and it works on iPhone, Android and Mac. If you need a clean transcript for a panel, see how to transcribe an interview.

After the interview: rate first, then debrief, then file

The order matters more than most teams think.

1. Rate alone. OPM's guide has each panel member review their notes and rate "without discussion with other panel members." Early opinions in a group chat anchor everyone else.
2. Debrief on evidence. Go competency by competency. When ratings differ by two points or more, each person reads their evidence aloud. Usually one person heard something the other missed.
3. Write the decision down. One or two sentences, tied to competencies: "Advance: strongest objection-handling evidence (4) and territory planning (5)."
4. File the notes. Keep them with the requisition, for at least the one year that 29 CFR 1602.14 sets. If a discrimination charge is filed, keep every relevant record until the matter is finally resolved.

For the debrief itself, the agenda-and-action-items format in our meeting notes template works well.

Conclusion

A good interview notes template turns "great energy" into evidence you can compare. The core habits:

• Pick four to six competencies from the job description and ask everyone the same questions
• Write the candidate's words, not your adjectives
• Score against anchors, and only with evidence you can point to
• Leave anything non-job-related out of your notes
• Rate alone before the debrief, then keep the notes for at least a year

Copy the template above into your next interview kit, and share the phone-screen version with your recruiters so submittals arrive with evidence attached.

And if you want to stay in the conversation instead of your notebook, try ParrotNotes free: record with consent, get the transcript and summary, and fill your template with exact quotes before the debrief.